Win, lose or draw, Israel’s leader will leave deep footprints in the sands of time.
By
Aug. 26, 2024 5:24 pm ET
ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU SPEAKS IN JERUSALEM, AUG. 4.
Almost a year into Israel’s most challenging conflict since the 1948-49 War of Independence, one thing is increasingly clear about its embattled prime minister. Love him or loathe him, Benjamin Netanyahu is a historic leader who has imposed his will on the great events of his time.
To call Mr. Netanyahu a great leader is neither to predict his ultimate success nor to endorse everything he does. It certainly isn’t to call him infallible. But we can’t understand the course of the current conflict in the Middle East without giving Bibi his due. He is a political genius who towers above his critics and rivals. Despite his political vulnerabilities at home and the limits on Israeli power internationally, he has kept the threads of power in his hands far longer and to much greater effect than almost anyone expected after Oct. 7.
Consider his liabilities. He leads a deeply divided coalition in a deeply polarized country. Criminal cases against him are grinding through the courts. Thousands of Israelis regularly turn out in the streets to demand he step down. The Israeli military establishment is in open revolt, and the intelligence establishment despises him. Israel’s Supreme Court considers him a threat to constitutional order.
The Gaza war began with Hamas exposing the Jewish state’s catastrophic strategic and tactical failures. It will take years to assign precise responsibility for the host of intelligence, political and military errors that left so many Israelis vulnerable to the terrorists’ barbarity, but the key failures occurred on Bibi’s watch.
Meanwhile the ugly realities of an unexpectedly difficult war have tested his leadership. Believing that Israel’s security requires the military annihilation of Hamas, Bibi finds himself committed to a long war that is explosively unpopular internationally, even as his refusal to place the return of the hostages ahead of military victory has mobilized domestic opposition. The military realities in Gaza and the political realities inside his coalition consistently require him to take actions that embarrass and anger the Biden administration, whose support is critical to Israel’s war effort.
Mr. Netanyahu is the bête noire of the international intelligentsia and the favorite whipping boy of the global press. As the most sweeping orgy of antisemitism in generations swirls around the world, Israel’s enemies use it to mobilize opposition to Bibi’s policies, while many Jews blame his policies for triggering the hate.
The entire world, the Israeli military, political and intellectual establishments, the Biden administration—not to mention Bibi’s enemies on the field and in the palaces of the Middle East—have tried to break his hold on power or at least force him to change direction.
They’ve all failed. Bibi remains at the helm. Despite the heart-rending tragedy of the hostages and their families, he has resisted the call to allow Hamas to profit from rape, kidnapping and torture by paying an extortionate price for their release. Time and again he has outmaneuvered the Biden administration, refusing to let a muddled and confused American Mideast policy control Israel’s agenda in an existential war.
For now, the tide seems to have turned in Bibi’s favor. A recent Maariv poll gives him a small lead over his chief rival, Benny Gantz. Hamas is fighting for its life with diminishing resources in the ruins of Gaza. The alignment of the conservative Arab states with Israel against Iran is holding. Hezbollah and Iran seem deterred by Israeli military power.
The Jewish state’s survival remains a work in progress. The conflict with Iran and its growing network of regional proxies remains unresolved. Relations with the U.S. under a Harris administration would likely be difficult. Domestically, the deep rifts between religious and secular Israelis, European and Middle Eastern Jews, and Jewish and Arab Israelis remain. The human costs of the Gaza war will add new depths to the bitterness of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Yet one thing seems clear. Win, lose or draw, Bibi Netanyahu is leaving deep footprints in the sands of time. Unlike most of the mediocrities who hold office in countries around the world, he won’t be quickly forgotten. He will occupy an outsize place not only in the history of Israel and the modern Middle East, but in the history of the Jewish people.
Great leaders don’t always succeed. Winston Churchill’s lifelong goal was to preserve the British Empire. In this and in much else, he failed. But Churchill saw one thing clear. “We are all worms,” he said. “But I do believe that I am a glow-worm.”
Only a handful of leaders can credibly claim to glow. As the Gaza war nears its first anniversary, Bibi Netanyahu has found a place among them.
VIDEO CLIP: ADDRESSING U.S. CONGRESS, THE ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER VOWED TO WIN THE WAR WITH HAMAS AND BRING ALL REMAINING HOSTAGES HOME, AND OUTLINED HIS VISION FOR THE FUTURE OF GAZA. PHOTO: TOM WILLIAMS/ZUMA PRESS
Appeared in the WSJ August 27, 2024, print edition as ‘Netanyahu’s Place in History’.
I’m still on the fence. I’m not from Missouri but their state motto absolutely applies… “Show me.”
Due to the extremely obvious detail that those in power — in any country — are inevitably shielded from their citizens as far as explicit details of what their true intentions and actions are I will maintain my position.
My dear mother, rest her soul, one day expressed that she had somewhat of a ‘crush’ on Bibi, although she avoided giving me a direct answer as to why.
She passed in 2008, so what she based her opinions/thoughts on was exclusively her exposure to Mockingbird media propaganda decades ago.
Until our President returns to his rightful position in the White House and we, as a nation, learn the basis for the phrase, “We will save Israel for last”, unless we learn beforehand, I will likely keep my seat on the fence.
NCSWIC
anoldpieceofleather
Benjamin Netanyahu has been designated as a war criminal by the International Criminal Court. He is criminally insane and has murdered defenseless citizens in their residences and refugee camps with 2,000-pound bombs. He deliberately allowed a stand-down of the Hamas attack on October 7th and the murder of his own Israeli citizens, mostly orthodox religious Jews, for seven hours in order to falsely justify genocide of two million Palestinians in Gaza. The body count is well over 40,000 to date and increasing. He is starving Gazan men, women and children. He has bombed one of the oldest Christian Churches in the world, hospitals, universities and caravans of aid workers and food supplies. Always cheesily pretending to “investigate,” which never happens, or lying that his genocide was “accidental.” He blatantly insults the intelligence of the rest of the world. Anyone who praises this savage and murderous bigot does not clearly recognize his zionist designs. He has taken advantage of the fact that the U.S. election was stolen from President Trump and that we have a demented criminal running our country to launch this obvious criminal genocide. To our everlasting shame, our House and Senate are bribed by AIPAC and have allowed this evil psycho to take billions of dollars of our wealth and weapons of mass destruction for his nefarious purposes.
I have serious doubts about Bibi. My opinion: With all the intelligence at his fingertips, did he let the people of Israel be ambushed and murdered? It was unspeakably cruel and monstrous. KayD